Think twice before you tweet too much
SEATTLE -- Before heading out of town, Seattle-area attorney Charity Glass-Cotta logged onto Twitter to let everyone know.
Her tweet read: "Heading down to Oregon for that long weekend - going off the grid, no Internet, happy 4th!"
A search of vacation Tweets turned up Glass-Cotta's post. And using the information on her Twitter page, it took me less than a minute online to find her home address and phone number.
Good thing I'm not a house burglar.
Glass-Cotta was nice enough to talk to me about what she had done.
She said she has two Twitter accounts -- one that's personal and private, and the other that's public for her business. She tweeted about that vacation on the public account.
"You know, I really didn't think that much through it. which you really should," she said.
For many, vacation tweets have replaced postcards as a way of telling family and friends: "Having a great time. Wish you were here."
But public tweets are not postcards. They're more like national TV commercials or giant billboards all across the country that tell everyone, "We're away. Might be a good time to break into our house."
"Most people set up their Twitter accounts so that anybody can follow them. And they're not very discriminate about who receives that information," said state Attorney General Rob McKenna.
McKenna says all someone needs is a little information about you to find out a whole lot more.
"It's very easy to find people, even people with unlisted phone numbers these days. You should not assume that just because you use some kinds of alias on your Twitter account that someone won't be able to figure out who you are and where you live," he said.
The attorney general, who has his own Twitter page, thinks people need to be much more careful with their tweets.
"And the fact is, even if you tweet to people you personally know, you don't know whether they're re-tweeting that information, sending it out to others as a matter of course," he said.
Linda Criddle is an internationally-know expert on cyber security who lives in the Seattle area. She runs the Web site ilookbothways.com on online safety.
Criddle says she sees too many people providing too much information in their public tweets.
"They just vomit information," she said. "For an ID thief, for a robber, for someone who is disgruntled and wants to find out where to stalk or slur you in some way, it provides a lot of information."
Users love Twitter because it's immediate and easy to use. That can result in sending off information without considering the risk.
"It's critical to think about it. It's a great tool, but you do need to think before you click," said Criddle.
Can a careless tweet really lead to a crime? I couldn't find a specific case directly linked to one. But burglars don't leave notes saying why they broke in to a house.
I can tell you police departments are worried about it. As one officer told me, "You never want your house to look like it's vacant when you go on vacation. why would you tell the world you're not going to be there?"
Her tweet read: "Heading down to Oregon for that long weekend - going off the grid, no Internet, happy 4th!"
A search of vacation Tweets turned up Glass-Cotta's post. And using the information on her Twitter page, it took me less than a minute online to find her home address and phone number.
Good thing I'm not a house burglar.
Glass-Cotta was nice enough to talk to me about what she had done.
She said she has two Twitter accounts -- one that's personal and private, and the other that's public for her business. She tweeted about that vacation on the public account.
"You know, I really didn't think that much through it. which you really should," she said.
For many, vacation tweets have replaced postcards as a way of telling family and friends: "Having a great time. Wish you were here."
But public tweets are not postcards. They're more like national TV commercials or giant billboards all across the country that tell everyone, "We're away. Might be a good time to break into our house."
"Most people set up their Twitter accounts so that anybody can follow them. And they're not very discriminate about who receives that information," said state Attorney General Rob McKenna.
McKenna says all someone needs is a little information about you to find out a whole lot more.
"It's very easy to find people, even people with unlisted phone numbers these days. You should not assume that just because you use some kinds of alias on your Twitter account that someone won't be able to figure out who you are and where you live," he said.
The attorney general, who has his own Twitter page, thinks people need to be much more careful with their tweets.
"And the fact is, even if you tweet to people you personally know, you don't know whether they're re-tweeting that information, sending it out to others as a matter of course," he said.
Linda Criddle is an internationally-know expert on cyber security who lives in the Seattle area. She runs the Web site ilookbothways.com on online safety.
Criddle says she sees too many people providing too much information in their public tweets.
"They just vomit information," she said. "For an ID thief, for a robber, for someone who is disgruntled and wants to find out where to stalk or slur you in some way, it provides a lot of information."
Users love Twitter because it's immediate and easy to use. That can result in sending off information without considering the risk.
"It's critical to think about it. It's a great tool, but you do need to think before you click," said Criddle.
Can a careless tweet really lead to a crime? I couldn't find a specific case directly linked to one. But burglars don't leave notes saying why they broke in to a house.
I can tell you police departments are worried about it. As one officer told me, "You never want your house to look like it's vacant when you go on vacation. why would you tell the world you're not going to be there?"